I don't believe that Arreola really has a Google News Alert on Himself.

I admire that Arreola isn't shy about dropping the F-bombs in his interviews. The majority of boxers I've met talk like 14-year-old boys who hope to grow up to be accident-prone sailors, but only Cristobal keeps it real.

Well, I guess there's a reason -- a profoundly irritating one -- for that: At their annual convention, the World Boxing Council [the organization whose heavyweight-title belt Vitali holds and Arreola was challenging him for] has suspended Arreola for six months for being such a pottymouth in his post-fight interview. The suspension matters about as much as the WBC is; Arreola can still fight -- in fact, he's slated to have a comeback fight on the undercard of the Paul Williams-maybe/hopefully Sergio Martinez fight on December 5th. I hope he's gone easy on the beer and junk food since the Vitali fight, and that he gets a solid opponent to fight.

What this WBC suspension ban means is that "The Nightmare" has been dropped from their heavyweight rankings and can't fight for a WBC title until the suspension term has been served. Like I said, it's about as meaningful as the Council is. Here's the bulk of the offending material:

So, this poor bastard kills himself on fairly short notice to get into a shape that's not round so that he can challenge a semi-legend for his heavyweight title -- and if he pulls off an upset against the guy he'll literally be the first Mexican-American HW Champ Ever -- he gives it his best shot in the ring, sticks to his guns even though they're not breaking Vitali down, and he gets pounded in the attempt. Then, with thousands of fans in the hall and millions watching on HBO, he drops a few F-bombs while emotionally crumbling. [FYI: The show that followed the HBO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING broadcast was, I'm pretty sure, an episode of TRUE BLOOD where I saw bigger tits and heard worse language than Arreola's within 15 minutes of the above interview.] And for this, WBC President Jose Sulaiman says that "there is no way a boxer within in the scope of the organization [I lead] can be let express himself in such a vulgar way without getting a penalty."

Fair enough, but this is the same organization and President-For-Life that actively fought for Antonio Margarito to not be suspended for a year after getting caught with loaded handwraps prior to his fight with Shane Mosley last January. This one is fucked-up on multiple levels -- I can understand Bob Arum not wanting one of his B/B+ HBO fighters being benched for at least a year, but I've never quite understood what Sulaiman's dog was in that fight. You find out your org's champion "may have been" [read: "was"] been cheating and you .... argue that he shouldn't be suspended from fighting? Why?

It's not like the WBC can't find another HBO-friendly welterweight to give a championship belt to -- in fact, the WBC loves giving out belts [and collecting the attendant sanctioning fees]. They just invented a new one -- the "Diamond" Belt, for fights held at catch weights! Never mind that the weight classes are designed so that, say, a Welterweight can fight at any weight between 140 and 147 pounds and still be a Welterweight -- with only 17 weight classes [plus 18 more in the female division] and each class can have any number of belts for Champion, Interim Champion, Champion In Recess, Super Champion, I'm probably forgetting some titles they've made up -- the WBC won't let private contractual agreements between boxers about what weight within their class they agree to fight at stop it from creating a new belt to cash in. [The WBC is not alone in this obvious bullshit, but it's the poster-child crackbaby for it.]

Anyway, we can imagine that if the weapons in Margarito's wraps hadn't been noticed by Mosley's trainer, Margarito would have likely brutalized Mosley in much the same way he did all of his opponents/victims, and if Shane had wailed and cussed in his interview the way Arreola did, he would have risked a six-month suspension from the WBC's rankings and had no opportunity to fight for one of their many many, many championship belts in his particular weight class. What's fucked up about that?